Costa Rica at the Allegro Papagayo then Liberia
Posted by daveg under Uncategorized
Costa Rica in the majority of ways does not give the vibe of Latin America. This is because of the huge level of US and other foreign development. That being said, my disclaimer should be that I was told that I went to the wrong places in Costa Rica because everywhere I went was fairly touristy.
Speaking of tourism, one of my goals for the trip was to be a proper gringo tourist for 3 nights at an all-inclusive resort. I figured Costa Rica was the place to do something like that. Enter Hotel Allegro Papagayo:
I drove here after staying in Liberia for one night.
Sticker shock.
I pulled up to the Allegro Papagayo and tried to get a room. The price was INSANE! They really like to have a double standard for “nations” versus “non-nationals”. They first wanted to charge me $180US a nigh!!!! That was unaccectable. Instead of storming out at the horrific price, I tried to negotiate. After about half an hour of going back and forth between front desk minion and manager we settled upon a rate of $120 a night. Still way too high, but hell, I had a goal to accomplish.
Thats the room that I stayed in. Well, thats the room that I slept in or watched Discovery channel in English. They had tons of english channels and I was really torn between mythbusters and having free drinks by the pool.
Overall, I was unimpressed with this kind of travel. It was completely isolating. Usually I’m able to talk myself into all sorts of conversations, but people here weren’t interested. The bulk of them were British people trying to stay fall overdrunk the whole time while turning their white skin into a shade of see-look-at-my-lobster-skin-i-went-on-holiday-red.
I really only had one good convesation and tons of crappy all-you-can-eat buffet food. The food was terrible. I would have rather eaten at a comedor on the side of the road than the crap that they threw in the feeding troughs at the buffet.
If it wasn’t for their excellent cable TV and beautiful beach that I roamed alone, I would have left after one day. After traveling around Central America on a motorcycle where each day is an adventure, roasting next to a pool with a bunch of drunk people is my idea of fun. So much for my vacation away from vacation.
What is nice about the influence of tourism and gringoism is that Costa Rica really goes out of their way to protect the environment, unlike most other CA countries. The rivers were clean and there was not the obvious clear-cutting and mineral extracting like I’ve seen throughout my trip. Costa Rica is beaufiful, especially the drive from San Jose to Panama.
I had a Glandslam at Denny’s!!!! Look at all that food!!!
Theo’s comment was very European on Denny’s, “No wonder Americans are so fat”. Yeah, he’s right.
I spent most of my time in Liberia. I spent over a week there waiting for my replacement computer for the one that I fried while I was trying to replace the power supply. Here is where I stayed. It is Hotel Los Angeles, in Liberia. I highly recommend it.
After spending several days in Liberia, I found this restaurant, Los Comales, by the recommendation by the guy who did my laundry. This place was awesome. It was traditional tico food. Not only was it tastey, but it was also cheap. I was back to eating my $2-$3 dinners. That is much better than when I was dining in the center of Liberia at $10 a meal. Ouch.
After a week, I met up again with Theo. We started riding to Panama. He’s really out of control with his photography”
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